You, Me and Swarovski
by Convenient Alias
Summary: "Dominic glanced over at Adelle. Vodka, the good stuff (not that he really drank enough to judge, being more of a beer person). What was it doing in a teapot?" Or, the one where Adelle's relationship with Dominic is complicated but her relationship with vodka is better. Oneshot, Adelle/Dominic.


Dominic used to think of Adelle as a very patient woman, dignified and classy. Always in control, all her emotions carefully compartmentalized and probably nonexistent. In the first few months of his employment under her, he thought he more or less understood her preferences: She liked her skirts well tailored, her shirts loose hanging, her hair down but well pinned, her clients pleased and wealthy and her beverages refreshing but non-alcoholic.

The skirts and shirts and hairstyles, of course, varied depending on the day, the occasion and the client—she dressed better if she knew important clients were coming and vice versa, though he never actually saw her with rumpled hair or, god forbid, a pair of pants. The preference in clients was on Rossum's behalf for the most part. She was very good at maneuvering them into spending a lot more money than they initially planned, probably a major reason she was still stuck managing this Dollhouse instead of working a job higher up in the company, a pity though not a loss for Dominic: he got a steady person taking care of a risky situation for his NSA half, and a clever, personable and gorgeous woman to work with for his more personal side.

As for her beverage preferences, who else, when meeting with the most well known hedonists in the city and sometimes in the nation, would continuously offer them, not wine or champagne or even an expensive beer, but a cup of tea?

Adelle always had a cup or pot of tea ready and at hand, usually made not with a teabag but with some fancy strainer or other. The pot was also the expensive kind, the kind you gape at in Teavana because it's beautiful and classy and everything you ever wanted for your own pots of tea but who on Earth could afford such a thing at three hundred dollars? Of course, knowing Adelle and seeing how carefully she always poured, it was probably worth considerably more than three hundred dollars. You didn't pay that much for aesthetic when all the other houses were flooding clients with whiskey. No, this was obsession: the real deal.

The last piece of proof was that Adelle, with an entire house of assistants and employees at her disposal, never had her tea made by anyone else. No, it had to be made by her, by hand, in her pot. No one else could touch it.

So, Adelle DeWitt was a tea lover. It suited her perfectly. It probably helped her to be maintain her zen, and she certainly maintained it well in very trying circumstances, so anything that helped her, Dominic had to support. Even though from where he stood, it looked effortless.

For the first several months of his employ, Dominic only tasted Adelle's tea a couple times, when he was directly involved in negotiations with the client and therefore she poured him a cup as well as herself and the customer. At those times, he had to say it was probably good: after all, it was ridiculously herbal and green-tasting, which probably meant it was good for your lungs or something like that. Herbal teas. He didn't stand by them (didn't stand by tea in general) but they were certainly to a certain taste, and they seemed to set the client at ease.

So Dominic got very used to Adelle's tea routine. As a result, he was considerably thrown when one Monday morning she eschewed it almost entirely.

Mr. Estes had been trying to get her to agree to send Whiskey to a party of his for nearly an hour now. Which was impossible—Whiskey was already assigned on that date to a more high profile engagement. But it was hard to tell a regular client that he'd simply been outclassed. And Estes was very insistent.

Adelle, of course, was a model of serenity. "I really do think our new Foxtrot might be of more interest to you, Mr. Estes."

Foxtrot was very new, barely tested out, but she'd done well in her first couple engagements, and Topher was still excited about her in the way he always got excited over a shiny new toy. She didn't have much to recommend her besides her looks, but then, neither did any of the actives. They were just shells occupied by whatever ghost Topher decided to stick in. Foxtrot was pretty, maybe prettier than Whiskey. There was no reason for Estes to be this stubborn. But then, he'd ordered Whiskey before, and apparently he'd been very pleased with the results.

"Young woman, I know what I want," Estes said. He was sixty-eight; Dominic still bristled at the diminutive though Adelle, smiling calmly, barely seemed to notice. "That girl Whiskey did fine last time and she'll do fine again. Now you can just get her reassigned, and we can both go home happy."

Adelle picked up her pot of tea. It had been sitting in the corner of the desk the entire time. She poured herself a small cup. Dominic expected her to pour Estes a cup as well, but no. Instead, she gulped her entire cup down in one long swallow, set the cup back down and said, "I'm afraid we cannot reassign on such short notice. Whiskey won't be free for another three weeks and even then the window is very narrow. Foxtrot, on the other hand…"

The meeting continued peacefully, and Estes was eventually convinced. Adelle sighed deeply as soon as he left and sank down onto the couch, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Dominic had seen many boring meetings in his time. He had never, however, seen Adelle refuse to share her tea before. Mystified, he poured a little out of the teapot into the second cup (which she never used) and lifted it to his lips for a taste—could it be that this tea was somehow inferior?

The fumes stopped him before he could even take a sip.

He glanced over at Adelle. Vodka, the good stuff (not that he really drank enough to judge, being more of a beer person). What was it doing in a teapot? What was it doing in Adelle's office? Was someone about to be viciously fired?

Adelle looked up and raised an eyebrow. He quickly looked away.

/…/…/

This was what Dominic learned about Adelle DeWitt's beverage preferences when he started actually paying attention:

1\. She really did drink a lot of tea. This was not a lie in any way, shape or form.

2\. She didn't drink vodka during important meetings or through the duration of important or dangerous engagements. This was…the majority of the time, actually. All engagements, after all, carried a certain base level of risk, and things could go pear shaped in minutes. And while Dominic could handle nearly everything, she disagreed with his decisions often enough that it was important for her to be sober enough to contradict his commands.

3\. On the other hand, she often came in the day after one of her few holidays or days off with a slight headache and an aversion to light. On these days she barely spoke to Dominic, pleasantly or in disagreement. In some ways they were very peaceful days, except she glared at him every time he raised his voice.

4\. She did drink vodka (sometimes in the guise of tea, sometimes openly) when dealing with annoying customers who weren't really all that important. Occasionally, on a particularly long and insignificant day, she would offer a swig to Dominic.

"Mr. Dominic, I know you have your pride," she said on 3:30 one day when they had already been in five different meetings and had about eight left to go because for some reason all the rich senators and company owners had decided to take the same week in August off and they all wanted companionship during their vacations. "But consider the fact that we have eight meetings to go and none of our actives are actually out on engagements right now."

"There's an engagement lined up in an hour," Dominic said. "Ma'am, I am your head of security and it is essential…"

"This is Magnum Grey Goose," Adelle said, lifting the teapot. "Many call it an essential life experience, if we're talking about…"

"I like beer," Dominic said shortly.

Adelle shook her head and took another delicate sip herself. Grimacing as she swallowed, she said, "Your loss."

She drank the whole bottle, but was entirely composed through her meetings. Dominic was reluctantly impressed. Though then again, when wasn't Adelle DeWitt impressive?

/…/…/

"This is an outrage," Adelle said.

Dominic scurried trying to keep up. He wasn't sure exactly what was wrong. She'd been peacefully reading through files in her office, not a meeting in sight, and suddenly gotten to her feet. Now she was stalking—if he was not mistaken—straight towards Topher's office. The look on her face was a look of murder.

"Ma'am, what has Topher done?" he asked. It wasn't that he was against murdering Topher. He rather supported it, both his NSA side and his personal side, but usually Adelle didn't agree.

Adelle muttered something under her breath that Dominic would have guessed was obscene but couldn't actually make head or tail of. Fuck. It had to be pretty bad if it was making Adelle freak out. She was one of the coolest people he'd ever met, not batting an eye when clients' or actives' lives were in danger, barely conceding to a single mistake in debates with her superiors and, of course, able to handle the vast emotional and moral pressure that came with working at a facility that wiped people's minds away so they could be used as prostitutes.

At least, Dominic thought, she only seemed to be angry, not frightened. If he ever saw Adelle frightened, he thought he would probably just curl up under his desk and cry. He wouldn't want to see what was coming for him. He would die in peace.

"Topher!" Adelle yelled as they came through the door of Topher's office. "I would like a word."

Topher hurriedly put down a sandwich that he was halfway through eating, even though it was four o'clock in the afternoon, not really a typical sandwich hour. A nervous smile twitched onto his face. Good—someone needed to share Dominic's concerns, even if it was an idiotic man child. "Ms. DeWitt! How can I help?"

Adelle had been carrying the offending file with her the whole way. Now she briefly waved it in the air before thrusting it into Topher's hands. "You'll explain this."

"This? Oh, this," Topher said, scanning the first couple pages. "This is the month's report that I submitted to you a week ago. I'm sorry it was late. Is the formatting off?" He checked the pagination at the top, laughing awkwardly. "Industry standard keeps on changing…"

Adelle put out her hand. Topher handed back the file and Adelle flipped it to a particular page before giving it back. "Here."

Topher scanned the page. "Um…all the information here is accurate. Do we have a problem?"

"Yes," Adelle said. "You state here in your report that this month you have decreased by 50% the number of imprints you have programmed to enjoy alcoholic beverages, especially hard liquor. Please explain the reasons for this cut."

Topher swallowed. "Well, um, our contracts with the actives state that we are to provide for their health. We do a really good job on short term, but long term, not so much. Dr. Saunders and I were talking about ways to improve that. Drinking too much on engagements, for example, could lead to liver problems later in life. I remove the imprint from the brain, that lowers the chance of alcoholism, but the body is more complicated than that." He scratched the back of his neck. "We don't want to be giving bodies back to these people with addictions, failing health...Besides which, a sober active is better able to look out for their own welfare, and many of our assignments can be somewhat risky…especially lately."

Adelle stared at the diagram on the paper. Turning to Dominic, she said, "As head of security, do you think this is reasonable?"

Dominic, who had been smirking at Topher's nervous expression (and the fact that he was, for once, trying to act professional, a rare event), now coughed. Was he supposed to give his honest opinion or back Adelle up on this? She still looked thunderous, and he still was lost as to what she wanted. Lowering levels of alcohol preference in the imprints…honestly, it sounded like a good thing, considering how hard the Dollhouse worked to maintain their actives' health. Certainly more practical than their extensive yoga regimens and that one time the house tried to go vegan, even for the employees. But judging by Adelle's attitude so far, that wasn't what she wanted him to say.

"I fail to see how this is a part of my job description, ma'am," he said. "All imprints are taken care of by Topher, I only provide for the safety and discretion of our Dollhouse."

"Topher brought up a safety concern towards the end there, if you were listening properly," Adelle said. "Being drunk on engagement. Is that a significant safety risk?"

"Well, ma'am," Dominic said. "Being drunk does inhibit judgment and various other skills so in some ways, yes. But most engagements that would involve drinking are social or romantic and should not be high risk. Besides," he added, thinking of a couple recent incidents. "In situations where we would be allowing the actives to drink, they would likely not be equipped with the skills required for self defense."

"That's a separate issue," Topher broke in. "If you would allow me to imprint all actives with basic defense protocols—"

"It is indeed a separate issue, and we are not discussing it right now," Adelle said. It was a longstanding argument: To risk the public by giving actives certain skills, or risk the actives by leaving them vulnerable? Dominic had sat through it at least ten times by now, in several variations, with several groups of people in attendance. Policies like those, however were mostly decided by the higher ups in Rossum, not the plebs.

"The question," Adelle said. "Is whether it's worth these health benefits or safety protocols to deprive the actives, and their clients, of a proper appreciation of alcohol. One might call such a thing a human right."

Topher laughed nervously again. When Adelle gave him a serious look he said, "The actives still enjoy themselves. They just have a bit less of an exciting time enjoying themselves. Actually, the clients often say it's good because they have to pay less for alcohol after engagements."

Adelle gave him a disbelieving look. "They're enjoying themselves more when the actives don't enjoy hard liquor?"

"So say the statistics," Topher said. "Science doesn't lie."

Adelle went away mournfully that day, muttering about people who didn't appreciate vodka enough. All she drank that day was tea (Dominic kept a sharp eye out) but she didn't seem especially happy about it.

/…/…/

After a few years working under her, Dominic came to know what Adelle was like when she was really and truly drunk. It did not happen very often (she had a very strong stomach and head) but he was her head of security, constantly around her, one of the few people she trusted. Of course he was eventually going to see it.

She looked not so very different from normal, though her cheeks would become slightly more flushed and her eyes would dilate a little. Her hair might get a bit messed, but no more than might be expected, say, walking around on a mildly windy day. She never spilled on her clothes or on the rug covering the wood panel floor. Ever.

She sounded a little bit off. Her voice would slur just ever so slightly, but she would still sound logical and controlled. He would barely notice that she had begun to say things that made no sense until some random remark would make him do a double take. Even then, he would rarely dare to mention it, because if you told Adelle she was drunk, she hardly ever took it well, whether it was true or not.

And when kissed, she tasted…well, of Swarovski vodka, as you might expect, but mingled with flowery jasmine perfume and an aftertaste of herbal teas that never really faded. Though Dominic's perception on that matter might have been biased, seeing as he had been drunk at the time too.

And it didn't happen again. Drunk or sober, Adelle was too sensible to carry on an affair with a coworker. No, she had her vodka for company, and that was good enough.

/…/…/

After the apocalypse (the thoughtpocalypse, as Topher aptly dubbed it), Adelle DeWitt changed in many ways. Though, perhaps in the most essential ways she stayed the same. She was still a patient woman, grown stronger in adversity, unswayed by blood or by hunger, thirst, devastation, or guilt…at least as far as Dominic could see, though with the way things were between them now (the attic, their separation of years, his mild betrayal before her harsher condemnation) she was hardly going to open up to him. She was still dignified, ruling over her wasteland cottage as easily as she used to rule her office. Her emotions existed (he could not doubt that after what they'd shared) but she kept them neatly tucked away, and didn't bother other people with them.

Her outward preferences, however, had changed quite a bit. No more tight or tailored skirts for her—now jeans or khaki pants with the occasional wide skirt, clothes she could kneel down in, clothes she wouldn't mind getting dirty. No more neatly tucked back down-dos for her hair, now still neat but chopped short and rather low on hair gel or even nice smelling conditioner. No more loose hanging but fashionable shirts, and no more clients, wealthy or poor. Now she had missions to organize instead of engagements, and the actives were supposed to be equals and partners instead of, well, dolls.

And apparently her preference in beverages was refreshing and non-alcoholic.

She didn't have her nice teapot anymore, the one she always used to serve the clients. It had still been intact in her office the last time Dominic had visited the Dollhouse to pick up some needed information. He'd paused for a moment, observing how it had collected dust on her desk, still pristine in all other ways, though he would have imagined it cracked by now in one calamity or other. It was hardy, like her. He'd left it sitting in her office, waiting for its mistress to fill it up again with a serenity and confidence he could not match.

Now, Adelle brewed up a pot of tea made with herbs from the garden in a kettle that was battered if not rusty, and poured it out into a couple of mismatched coffee mugs. She watched him take the first sip (still frustratingly leafy though of course the taste was rather different, the herbs probably vastly different since they were home grown) before sipping a bit off the top herself and asking in a measured voice, "How have you been?"

So polite. She'd never been so polite with him before. Treating him distantly, like one of her former clients. A part of him longed for her to casually demand his attention again, his employer, his goddess. Another part of him wanted her to just relax a little bit and talk to him like one human to another, a way they'd rarely managed to interact.

"I've been great," he said. "You should see LA lately, it's a mess. I shot five people last week, and killed another one with a shiv. Your kind of crowd, of course. You should come back."

He had to give her credit. He was being crude and coarse on purpose and she didn't even flinch. No, no guilt on that face, even if it was an apocalypse she'd caused, or at the very least hastened. She only took another drink of tea and said, "That sounds very unpleasant."

Her level, understated voice, had always seemed superior to him back when it was accompanied by high heels and leather couches. Now, surrounded by wooden kitchen chairs, afternoon light seeping through worn curtains, it seemed humble, sympathetic.

"Yes," he said. "It was."

"I'm glad you're here now," she said, and somehow he couldn't doubt she was sincere.

He laughed because the sentiment coming from her seemed so wrong. It was so wrong that she should care about him, should feel anything towards him except cool condescension or perhaps resentment. Whenever he thought about her lately, it made him feel sick; the attic had taken care of that. But seeing her face to face, he found there was more nostalgia left in him than he would have liked.

"It's good tea," he said, taking a final gulp from his mug before standing. "But I brought you something a bit heavier from the city. Something I thought would interest you."

Adelle raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

He pulled the bottle out of his knapsack. Not the best brand, just cheap convenient store crap he'd found looting a deserted corner of the city. Still, "Vodka."

Adelle's eyes brightened in a way that was very familiar as she took the bottle from his hands. Twisting the bottle cap off, she took a small sip and sighed like a connoisseur at a wine tasting. "Thank god," she murmured as she leaned back in her chair. "Thank god."

/.../.../

/.../.../

/.../.../

I don't know. I saw some posts on tumblr about Adelle/vodka being one of the best ships in Dollhouse (can't remember who posted these) and somehow it percolated (fermented?) in my mind until this fic happened.

But anyways I'm not incredibly pumped about Adelle/Dominic but I will reluctantly concede it's one of the best ships for Adelle and Adelle is SO COOL I LOVE HER. So here she is drinking tea and obsessing about vodka. Please don't take it too seriously.

Reviews are much appreciated! Or find me on tumblr at .com


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